Zeolites are hydrated metal aluminosilicate compounds with well-defined (tetrahedral) crystalline structures. Because zeolite crystals (both natural and synthetic) have a porous structure with connected channels extending through them, they have been employed as molecular sieves for selectively absorbing molecules on the basis of size, shape, and polarity.
Volumes packed with zeolite crystals (for example, small zeolite crystals chosen to have size in the range from 0.2 mm to several millimeters) have been employed in water and air (or other gas) filtration systems to selectively absorb contaminants from a flowing stream of water or gas.
It has been proposed to treat zeolite crystals by impregnating them with quaternary ammonium cations (such as tetramethylammonium, tetraethylammonium, hexadecyltrimethylammonium, dibenzyldimethylammonium, benzyltriethylammonium, and cetyltrimethylammonium), to enhance the zeolite's capacity to absorb heavy metal, benzene, toluene, and xylene contaminants from water. See, for example, Cadena, et al., "Treatment of Waters Contaminated with BTX and Heavy Metals Using Tailored Zeolites," New Mexico Waste-management Education and Research Consortium Technical Completion Report for Project No. WERC-91-41 (February 1992). If not impregnated with a quaternary ammonium cation (QAC), zeolite does not function adequately as a molecular sieve for organic chemicals such as benzene, toluene, and xylene.
It has also been proposed to impregnate an aqueous solution of permanganate (such as permanganate of potassium, sodium, magnesium, calcium, barium, or lithium) into pores of substrates such as silica gel, alumina, silica-alumina, activated bauxite, and activated clay. The resulting impregnated porous substrates have been employed for filtering and deodorizing air. See, for example, U.S. Pat. No. 3,049,399, issued Aug. 14, 1962, to Gamson, et al.
However, zeolite crystals have not been impregnated (throughout their volume) with permanganate.
Further, because permanganates are strong oxidizing agents, those skilled in the art have avoided exposing quaternary ammonium cations or salts to permanganates (to avoid violent reactions of the type predicted in the literature). For this reason, it has not been proposed to treat a permanganate-impregnated substrate (such as permanganate-impregnated zeolite) with a quaternary ammonium cation or salt. Nor has it been proposed to treat a substrate impregnated with a QAC (quaternary ammonium cation) to permanganate.
We have found that zeolite crystals can readily be impregnated with a usefully high concentration of potassium permanganate. However, we have recognized that, under certain conditions, such permanganate-impregnated zeolite reacts too rapidly to be practically useful for some air filtration applications. For example, when air contaminated with 50 ppm of hydrogen sulfide is caused to flow (at a rate of 15 liters per minute) through a bed of the inventive permanganate-impregnated zeolite crystals (where the crystals have size about 0.25 inch.times.0.125 inch, and the bed has volume of 75 cubic centimeters, and dimensions 1"(1d).times.6"), the crystals typically become saturated with hydrogen sulfide within about 48 hours. Although the impregnated zeolite crystals usefully absorb hydrogen sulfide from air, the hydrogen sulfide absorption rate is significantly higher than can be achieved using conventional permanganate-impregnated alumina products, and is undesirably high for some applications.
For both air (and other gas) and water filtration applications, it would be desirable to reduce the rate at which permanganate-impregnated zeolite absorbs selected contaminants, and to control such absorption rate. Similarly, it would be desirable to reduce the rate at which QAC-impregnated zeolite absorbs selected contaminants, and to control such absorption rate. However, until the present invention, it was not known how to achieve either of these objectives.